English Spelling & Pronunciation: The Silent ‘H’

The silencing of the H. This pesky letter, the H, or in British English they say "hate",

which I like.

I like that, the H. Sometimes in English we just don't say it, and it's silent, and that's

really confusing because, for an example, a horse, we say the H, but some words like

"honest", we don't say "honest", the H is silent.

So let's get into this.

The reason why we say the H in "horse" is because "horse" is from Germanic roots.

Now, the crazy thing about English and why it's so difficult for everyone, including

me, is that it's not from one single language; it's from Germanic, Old English, Norse, Latin,

Portuguese, French, Italian, Greek.

We just take all the languages and mix them up and make you learn them.

Good luck.

But I'm here to help you with the silent H, so H shall be silent in these letters.

And, and, cool, cool, cool, I'm going to teach you actually how to say these words because

some of them we change it to a K. So, this word, if you look at it, we think it's "anchor",

but it's actually "anchor".

An anchor is usually found on a boat, and it's a thing that we put in the water to stop

the boat from going, so.

We don't say "anchor", we say "anchor".

Now, if you look at the red letters here, this is how I would say the words and how

I would write them if I could write English.

Let's start a petition that Ronnie rewrites all of the English words.

Give me money, donations.

This is a terrible word for most people.

Let me break it down for you.

"Ar-ca-tect", before you look to this word and you go "ar-chee-ee-tay-keh", I am an

archite-teh-teh, do you want me to build your house?

But we say "architect".

The CH actually sounds like a K, same with "anchor".

Next one, we look at "archives", oh, chives, delicious, the spring onion, but we say "archives",

so again, the CH, the H is silent and the C sounds like a K, so "archives".

Next one, I love this word.

I remember being in grade 8 and I said to my friend, "What is 'chaos'?

Let's cause some 'chaos'", and then my friend's like, "What are you talking about, 'chaos'?"

I'm like, "Chaos, you know, anarchy, chaos", and they're like, "You mean 'chaos'?"

"Oh."

"Well, why do they spell it with a CH?" and I say, "Chaos", and they're like, "No, it's

chaos."

So, it's "k-aws", like "Australia" or "Austria", hello, hello there, so we say "chaos".

Next one, you probably say "character", right?

You do, I know you do, I've heard you, you say "character".

Hey, you have a good character, Ronnie, but it's actually "character", so again, we're

taking the CH, we're completely taking out the H sound, and we're making it like a K.

The C might begin to make sense for you, and "chemical", we don't say "chemical", we take

out the H sound, the H is silent, "chem-a-cle", "chem-ee-chow", no, don't even worry about

the English, just repeat after me, "chemical".

Chorus, mm-hmm, yeah, so "chorus" changes to "chorus", chorus is a group of people that

sing together, or your favorite part of every song out there, wait till it gets to the chorus,

you're doing karaoke, you have no idea what they're singing, and the chorus comes, damn,

you can sing that song really well, the chorus is the rephrase in the song that everybody

knows.

Uh-oh, we just said "architect", now we're getting even longer, but "ar-ca-texture",

texture, architecture, so, we've got the CH again, and we've added "texture", "architecture",

good.

Wow, this is getting easier, isn't it?

CH again changes to a K, we don't say "try-smiss", Merry Try-Smiss, everyone, we say "christmas".

Okay, so, in English, sometimes we have a CH, the K is...

The H is completely silent, and we pronounce it like a K.

Are you ready to get just a little bit crazier?

This word, "echo", we say "echo", again, the CH becomes a K.

Let's get to where we actually just don't even say the H and pretend it doesn't exist,

because this is how homophones come into play.

So, if we look at this word, the "hour", we want to say "how-er", but we actually have

"our" belonging to us, so this is a homophone, "our-hour".

What hour is it?

Is it my hour, or ours?

"Ghost", we don't say "ga-host", I remember a child, as a child, I said "Mom, there's

a ga-host".

And my mother said "You don't believe in ga-hosts, how is there a ghost?"

And I was "Oh, it's a ghost, not a ga-host", and I always spell it G-O-S-T, but apparently

that's wrong, I'm going to put the invisible H.

The questions, "when", we can't say that, what are we doing, "when", "when", take out

the H, just say the W, "when", "where", "where".

Homophone for the verb "to do with clothes", are you a witch, like for real?

We don't say "w-w-witch", homophone "witch" and "witch", "wile", "w-w-w".

It's so hard, "w-w", to make this long aspirated sound, "wile".

I like this, "why", sometimes maybe you get a text message and there's just a big "why",

"why did somebody just put a 'why'", oh, guess what, because that's the pronunciation of

this word, the H is silent, the W is silent, and we just say the last letter, "y", so why

don't we write it with a "y", easier.

This is fun, "honest", oh, "honest", we don't say "ho-ho-honiest", I'm the honiest person

here, but we say "honest".

So, this one's always crazy, too, "air", you look at this and go, "Here I am, I'm the heir

to the throne", but it's actually "air" and you think, how did that even cross someone's

mind to make it sound like "air", but it doesn't matter because it's a homophone and it's probably

from French.

Thanks, French.

If you've noticed French speakers, they have a trouble with the H, they don't say it, they're

just like, "Ah, we're never going to say the H, okay?

Our rules are easier, just don't say it, it'd be great."

But English goes, "You know what, we're going to say it in some words, but not in other

words, and in other words we're going to change it to a K, ha-ha, good luck, English learners."

Brings us to grammar.

Have you ever studied the terrible articles?

Articles are "a", "an", and "the", and I've done lessons on them, check them out.

Articles, Ronnie, okay?

This will maybe make sense to you now.

So, why do we have to say "an hour" when clearly this isn't a vowel, it's an H, but because

the H is silent, it makes a vowel sound, so we have to be careful, "an hour", "an hour".

An honest woman, so again, we're not saying the H, so because it makes a vowel sound,

we have to put the article "an", "and", "an honour".

It is an honour for me to be here today.

Check out this spelling, I'm Canadian, so I like to put extra letters and extra vowels

to make it easier.

Now, to make it more difficult for you, we say "honour", now, American English, they're

going to put "easier", oh, American English is better, "honour", so British English and

Canadian English, we like to add the extra "u", and American English, we take out the

"u's".

Thank you, thank you.

I like this better.

And we have this word again, "an heir", and still, I'm still not comfortable with this.

How is this even, like the thing that we breathe, an heir?

And what is an heir anyways, how, what, what, Ronnie, you, so, an heir is basically, let

me explain this, we have a king or a queen, yay, they die, bye, their heir would be their

son, usually, daughters don't usually get the kingdomship, so the heir would be someone

who receives money or property from a dead person, yeah, that's kind of creepy now, maybe

it's creepy and it says heir and that's the purpose of it, but you can have an heir to

the throne, an heir to the kingdom.

If somebody's parents die, you, no, not somebody's parents, oh my god, if your parents die, don't

want them to die, but when they do, they will, you would be an heir to their property, if

they have it, and you should give it to me, so here's a new deal.

If your parents have many properties and you're just like, I don't know what to do with all

these properties, please donate them to Ronnie, engVid, okay?

You can hit me up at my website, englishwithronnie.com, I accept all donations of anything, property,

honors, money, artwork, doesn't matter, send it to me, I will be your heir.

Oh, I'm so nice, I know, okay, cool, so, never mind the H, just take it out completely, change

it to a K, but use it in some words.

Yeah, I hope that confused you more, and I'm going to study a dictionary, goodbye.